32 | Sunday Review Dying for organs: A case for transplants Medics say they would welcome legal donations of healthy kidneys and other body organs, but society and the law frown upon such taboo gifts BY VERAH OKEYO @VerahOkeyo vokeyo@ke.nationmedia.com services at Kenyatta National Hospital a lot of money and pain. Dr Were, the facility’s renal unit I head, says one source of organs could be Kenyans who consent to donate their kidneys, and other organs, when they die — a donation termed cadaveric. But it is forbidden by Kenyan law. He told the Sunday Nation: “There are athletic people who do not suffer from major infections. When they die, they are buried with healthy lungs, liver, kidneys, bones, eyes and intestines which could save many lives”. Currently, only blood relatives and spouses can donate organs to patients. The shortage of body organs re- mains a global challenge, one that could be solved through, among other ways, encouraging healthy people to pledge to donate their organs when they die. While doctors and the society appreciate the challenges and associated benefits of organ transplant, legal and cultural impediments stand in the way of allowing Kenyans to give away their organs when they die. Lion’s SightFirst Eye Hospital’s website says there are 50,000 Kenyans suffering from corneal blindness whose sight could be saved through transplantation. To this figure reported in f Dr Anthony Were had a kidney bank, he could save patients who seek dialysis 2011, add about 5,000 cases every year. Even were the law to allow such donations, most Kenyans are unwilling to donate their organs. Professor Omar Egesa, a medi- cal anthropologist and lecturer at Moi University, says: “Cultural background and beliefs still hold the dead in respect, and they would want the deceased buried whole.” Prof Egesa adds that “deceased organ donation” — as it is termed by the World Health Organisation — is a fairly strange Western practice. Many Kenyans will react to it with opposition, as they would to any idea they had only cursory knowledge of. It is the same reason very few people write wills to divide their estate and to speficy whether they prefer burial or cremation. When asked whether he would donate his organs to save another person’s life, Malcolm, a private gym instructor, said: “No. I know someone may need my lungs, but I don’t want to hang death over my head. I want to be buried whole”. Like Malcom, business woman Terry Mwangi says she would not donate her organs. “That is witchcraft,” she told the Sunday Nation. 14,600 The lives lost through road accidents alone from 2009 to April 2013 — fatalities that could boost a national organ bank BY OTIATO GUGUYU dotiato@ke.nationmedia.com Residents claim the closure of an entrance to Metro Villas Estate in Buru Buru exposes them to a grave threat in case of an emergency. The new gated community with 34 housing units has been embroiled in a protracted battle with a school over the use of an access road. On Thursday, Buru Buru Girls’ Secondary School moved to enforce an order to close the gate after National Land Commission chairman Mohammed Swazuri on Monday called for the closure. According to maps shown by Mr Swazuri, the road in question lies within the land allocated to the school under a title deed acquired in 2012. The school administration claims the new estate has a parking area just outside its gate, which blocks access to the school. The management also claims that tenants were encroaching on their land during social functions at the estate. Metro Villas Residents As- FILE | NATION National Land Commission chairman Mohammed Swazuri ordered the gate closed. sociation chairman Kanyenje Gakombe, however, accused principal Consolata Kimuya of staging a vendetta, allegedly because they refused to accept her offer to buy a house in the estate. He claims she concealed the information when she made an application for the closure with the Land ministry and has been using her position to call on leaders to intimidate residents of the estate. FILE | NATION A kidney patient undergoes dialysis at Kenyatta National Hospita. KNH’s Dr Anthony Were says healthy livers, kidneys, bones and eyes of the dead could be very useful. On the legal reasons for do- nating organs, Professor Kiama Wangai, a doctor-lawyer, says there is the Anatomy Act of 1967 which allows donation of bodies to medical training institutions for purposes of research. Should the legislative hurdle be jumped, Prof Wangai sees another challenge: “We are at a level of development with cultural and historical issues that have not created room for that, no matter how practical it looks medically”. Deceased organ donation would have salvaged the situation in many developing countries such as Kenya where from 2009 to April 2013, road accidents alone have claimed 14,600 lives. Cruel as it may sound, these fa- talities, and the others that occur in bathrooms and on building sites, are potential donors. Studies have shown that Afri- Residents, school clash over gate “She called Senator James Orengo when he was the Land Minister, Mr PLO Lumumba when he was at Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission and even minister George Saitoti (deceased) to intimidate us,” he said. He added that according to the 1978 maps before the school was started, the contested road is indicated as a public road. He said the estate was designed with the access road in mind. Mr Gakombe said that get- ting another access would mean some of the houses would have to be brought down, including re-designing the sewerage system. “When I bought a house here, I cross-checked with the City Council and everything was in order; her fight should be with the county and not us, innocent Kenyans,” he said. The residents have peti- tioned the county to extend the road through the school to join Rabai Road and Chege Kibiru Road and upgrade it to create an alternative access for Harambee Estate residents and police station. President Uhuru Kenyatta listens to KeNHA Director-General Linus Tonui during the official launch of the upgrading works of the Mitunguu-Chiakariga-Meru Road on Fri- day. JOSEPH KANYI I NATION Transporters put on notice for overloading By Correspondent SGS Kenya, the firm that is tasked with managing weighbridges, has put in place measures to deal with abuse of stipulated axle load limits on the road. Working closely with the Kenya National Highways Authority (KeNHA) and the Traffic Department of the Kenya Police, SGS is patrolling the major highways in a bid to arrest offenders. SGS officers and the state agents are operating in unmarked cars to avoid being detected by the crooks. Last weekend, SGS officers, assisted by the police, arrested a Congo bound truck that was carrying 171 tonnes, the highest overload recorded in Kenya. The truck was legally allowed to carry a total gross weight of 56 tonnes. The manager in charge of operations, Mr Fred Nyale, said the new measures have been introduced after the firm realised that overloaders had devised new ways to beat the system. Mr Nyale said cargo consolidation, the pooling of goods into one big truck after going through the weighbridge, was on the rise. “Rogue transporters are now presenting compliant lorries at weighbridges for the purposes of getting a sticker but later consolidate several cargoes into one large trailer and then proceed to their destination via routes that have no weighbridges,” he said. He, however, warned that the success of the operation last week was an indicator that KeNHA and SGS will prevail in the war against overloading. cans are three to four times more likely to develop organ malfunction, such as kidney illness. Also, data from WHO lists sub-Saharan Africa as the largest contributor to the disease burden in the developing world that accounts for 80 per cent of the global disease burden. WHO reported that one per cent of deaths in 2012 [there were 187,811 deaths that year, as recorded in the department of civil registration] were due to diabetes. The figure could be underestimated, owing to poor data capture techniques in Kenya’s healthcare system. Some of these problems could have been solved with kidney transplants. Besides saving lives, deceased donors would unburden live donors of inherent dangers associated with surgery, such as 29-year-old Rehema Kanini’s death in Apollo Hospital in India in August 2014 after donating a When athletic people die, they are buried with healthy organs which could save many lives Dr Anthony Were kidney to her ailing uncle. A post mortem on Kanini showed a blood clot had blocked her main artery to the kidney and suffocated other main organs such as the brain, heart and lungs. Dr Were lists the costs incurred by patients who have not found a donor and rely on weekly dialysis to survive. “Dialysis at Kenyatta costs Sh5,000, and may be conducted twice a week. After that, there are drugs to be bought to control the patient’s blood pressure, anaemia and other side-effects of dialysis.” The costs in private hospitals are higher. “A transplant costs about Sh300,000. The patient heals in about a month,” says Dr Were. Dr Were says he has met Ken- yans who are willing to donate their organs upon death, but they are unaware of how to go about it. SUNDAY NATION March 1, 2015 GIFT OF LIFE | Dialysis at Kenyatta could cost Sh10,000 a week, while a one-time transplant could cost about Sh300,000